University of Denver athletic director Peg Bradley-Doppes spoke to The Denver Post for the first time since her April 1 firing of hockey coach George Gwozdecky, who had qualified for eight of the last 10 NCAA Tournaments (and last six consecutively) and is the country’s only coach to win 20 games in each of the past 12 seasons.

(Colleague Terry Frei has written a column about the AD and Gwozdecky, and I will link it here when it posts.)

Gwozdecky also had what was considered the country’s best hockey team in 2009-10, when the Pioneers (27-7-4 before losing last three) won the WCHA regular-season title before flaming out in the first round of the NCAA Tournament against RIT; and DU was runner-up in the league playoffs in 2009, 2011 and 2012, after winning the Broadmoor Trophy in 2008.

I asked her about a sentence in her April 1 release, which said Gwozdecky had his “fair share of success … in the middle of the previous decade.”

Monday, Bradley-Doppes said: “I did not mean it derogatory. I believe Coach Gwozdecky did a great here at DU. I told him that. He ran a good program with great young men and we had success. Our aspirations as an institution that are clearly outlined with our head coaches (include) we aspire to be in the hunt for the Frozen Four year-in, year-out . . . I did not mean it any way to be derogatory, certainly not to our student-athletes, certainly not to our coaches. But rather, the expectation of our programs are higher.”

OK, so the goal is get to the Frozen Four. Gwozdecky was 11-10 in the NCAA Tournament, but 1-6 in the past six years. DU went 8-0 to win the 2004 and 2005 titles.

He was not fired over his lack of success, although being in the “hunt” for the Frozen Four and continually flaming out early got old. Bradley-Doppes admitted that the failure to agree on a contract extension also got old, although we know Gwozdecky was not asking for the moon. He might have been insulted by asking to take a decrease in pay, perhaps leading to the impasse.

Given all that, I was tipped off by a former DU defenseman that several front-runners were scared to accept the challenge, afraid of the challenge to inherit a team that has lost six underclassmen to NHL deals in a little more than a year and work with an AD who might take making the NCAA Tournament for granted (16 of 59 teams make it).

“There was an awful lot of interest in this position, so if the expectation of the university made anyone feel uncomfortable, it wasn’t obvious,” Bradley-Doppes said. “We had incredible interest in this position from head coaches, associate head coaches in junior, pro and collegiate. It’s a testimony to the rich, tradition of hockey.”